There is sometimes found in the realm of man one whom a bee will not sting. Whether this is in respect for the man, or self-respect, may still be pronounced an open question. One is inclined to think this way, or that way, according to the aspect of him who makes the boast. At any rate, Jess was of this select few, and in another minute he was standing erect, chuckling, with five little workers buzzing excitedly between his two palms, held together cup-like.

Now he permitted one to crawl out, and it shot away as a rifle ball toward a clump of trees some half a mile distant. This was the sheriff's first clue.

Carefully he climbed the worm fence—for it would not do to crush even so lightly his four remaining captives—and strode blithely on. But he was a long time reaching the trees; for a man, holding his two hands out before him, delicately clasped and protecting bees, who must cross fences and scramble through ravines, does not travel with the rapidity of thought.

At the edge of the wood he released a second bee, watching it with the same intentness as it darted off; and, having walked to about the spot where it had disappeared, he let out prisoner number three. Of course, on the same direct line this one went—for wild bees thus captured and set at liberty abandon all desire for further work, and in a panic rush headlong to their hive; in this way the wild hives are found. But the fourth very soon swerved upward into the branches of a hollow black-gum tree. Chuckling now, Jess indifferently freed the remaining captive; for the search was ended, the treasure house was his. He pressed his ear against the bark and listened. A low, incessant buzzing sound was there, as though these five excited wanderers were recounting their adventure to the agitated colony.

Having marked the place, the sheriff pressed on through the wood to a neighboring farm house where he prevailed upon one Hod Fugit, to accompany him with axe and buckets. The prudent Hod would have brought a veil had Jess not laughed him out of it—for Jess, secure within himself, would have the fun go as far as it could be stretched. An hour later the black-gum tree came ripping, crashing to earth.

The intelligence, or instinct, of the bee has furnished inspiration for many pens. Centuries prior to Maeterlinck, even before Pliny, Virgil, Varro and Aristotle, those warmly constructed little insects, hailed by the ancients as Winged Servants of the Muses, have been immortalized. But, however much has been extolled their intelligence, or instinct, in no page is it transcribed that their heads, or brains, or hearts are the regions wherewith they argue; and, when this honey had been gathered, Hod's rotundity of countenance was not all cheer. This, because man's sense of humor is an enigmatical product, afforded Jess many pleasant chuckles as he trudged, now with a full bucket of the golden prize, back to his horse; and, in order to portray Hod's antics more vividly to the several acquaintances he met on his way to town, he not infrequently dismounted. But, entering the Court House square at sunset, his mirth sank miserably into his boots; for there upon the steps sat a young man in smart puttees and riding breeches just finishing his dozenth cigarette.

Thus it came about that a little bee, athirst and momentarily ceasing its frenzied toil to drink beside the way, led a sheriff from his duty, and affected a prisoner's release from voluntary durance at the precise moment for him to meet, three miles out the pike, a happy girl—herself hurrying homeward—in whose heart someone's name was ringing with the beat of her bounding pulses, and in whose cheeks a color flamed as she recognized him coming.

They reined in gently and stopped. The horses touched noses. For the merest instant his eyes hungrily devoured her, then for an instant closed, and after this he smiled politely, asking:

"May I say you're stunning?"

"Flatterer, comforter," she laughed. "But I'm dreadfully in need of it. I've been—been crying!"

"Yes," he murmured, "I remember; you must have been. Shall I go back with you as far as Bob's gate?"

"No; it is almost in sight, and you're as late as I. Why do you say you remember?—that I must have been?"

"Because you just now told me you had been," he smiled again.

"Brent," she leaned over and looked very seriously into his face, "don't temporize. I'm not in the humor for it! I heard about—something today, and I want to tell you that you're—that you're splendid!"

"What about?" There was no feigned surprise in his question.

"Oh," she clapped her hands as a delighted child might have done, "he doesn't know that Tusk is alive!" But added gravely: "Suppose he'd been dead, Brent!"

He turned away; afraid, in this surprise and strange giddiness which was enveloping him, to trust himself to speak. There ensued a longer pause, broken by her wistful voice asking: "Why did you, Brent?"

"Oh, I was just having a little fun with Dale," he answered casually. "Hurry, it's late! I'll race you to Bob's gate—and leave you!"

Turning his horse to put it in motion, he did not know that she sat drooping in the saddle, and staring—pale and staring—with a horrified fear and disappointment in her eyes.

"I'll not race," she faltered. "It is so near, so don't come. Perhaps I might have guessed—that—you—were—but I just—just hoped—. Good night. I didn't see the Colonel—please say I send my love."

She was riding away, when he called desperately after her:

"Don't you want Dale to have a little of it?"

That one taunting, trembling, passionate question, hurled at her with such bitterness of feeling, such hopeless sense of despair, touched a spring which opened the doors of the heretofore inscrutable, and flooded her with light. For an instant the pike danced before her eyes as though it were a road of bejeweled splendor! She wanted to laugh, and she did laugh; and, if he had guessed the reason, she might have had to use both whip and spur in a longer race than just to Bob's gate. But he did not guess, and she did not turn her head nor slacken pace. Unhappily and sullenly he rode on to Arden.

Several days passed before they met; but in the meanwhile he had spent not a few nights sitting by that window in his darkened room, building castles and tearing them down, planning futures and destroying them; dreaming, dreaming. His attitude had become merely deferential, requiring a studied reticence upon her own part, and precluding a reference to their meeting on the road, or any mention of nobility, the sheriff, Dale or Tusk.



CHAPTER XXXIII

THE MYSTIC GARDENER SHOWS HIS WORK

It was sundown about a week later when Brent came up the steps and threw himself in a chair by the Colonel's side. Jane and the faithful Mac had just left—indeed, the sound of her horse's hoofbeats might still be heard through the pulseless evening as the two men gazed in moody silence at the approaching night. The sky had taken on that deep blue velvet softness of Italian beauty, and the low, red west of the dying day might have been reflected from some funeral pyre in distant, mystic India. A murmur of drowsy birds came from the darkening trees—a few hushed, plaintive notes, wistfully calling in tones of twilight.

"Poor little Mesmie is having a bad time of it," Brent spoke with an effort. "It's been fourteen days, and Stone says he must try to graft skin. I offered mine, but he couldn't consider it."

"That was very fine of you, Brent," the old gentleman turned to him. "Why wouldn't he take it?"

"Oh, there wasn't anything fine about it, Colonel," he answered with a touch of irritation. "He couldn't take it because he saw us with some juleps this morning. He says he has to have healthy skin for grafting."

The Colonel cleared his throat. He had just been contemplating a signal to Zack, but now the idea seemed somehow inappropriate.

"Why not Bradford?" he asked. "He's her father!"

"He's got poison-ivy, or hives, or something." And, after another moment: "Good night, sir, I think I'll go up stairs and work!"

In the library Dale closed his book and stood up. He had overheard this conversation about skin grafting, and now went softly out through the dining-room way, thence to the overseer's cottage. Pushing open the door, he looked in.

In the uncertain glimmer of light cast by the shaded kerosene lamp, sat the doctor, Bradford and Aunt Timmie, each with eyes on the little sufferer. They did not look up, and he passed through, standing with his hands clasped behind his back, gazing down with the others at the pitiful scene. Nor did they realize he was there until his deep voice drawled:

"Brent says you want healthy skin."

"I do, very much indeed," Stone quickly arose.

"Well, I reckon you can have what you want of mine."

The doctor took up the lamp and held it close to Dale's face.

"Drink?" he asked.

"Never have yet."

Ignoring the presence of Aunt Timmie, he put a few more intimate questions, and a look of gratification crossed his face when the mountaineer had fully answered.

"You'll do," he whispered hopefully. "Don't eat breakfast in the morning, and be here at seven o'clock."

"What's that for?" Dale asked.

"I'll put you under an anaesthetic, and your stomach must be empty."

"What's anaesthetic?"

Doctor Stone explained it.

"And how long will that last?"

"You ought to feel pretty good by noon, maybe sooner."

"But I've got to study in the mornin'!"

"Study, man! Get that notion out of your head. You won't do any studying tomorrow!"

"Then you don't get any skin tomorrow," Dale turned resolutely on his heel. "I've got too much to do, an' too little time to do it, to fool 'round here!"

Stone looked at him in speechless wonder, saying slowly in his surprise:

"I don't understand you!"

Bradford sprang up to entreat, but was pushed roughly aside as the mountaineer started to the door.

"Wait, Mr. Dawson," he implored. "Maybe you kin save her life!"

"I ain't begrudgin' the skin," Dale wheeled on him with savage emphasis, "but time I do begrudge! Get someone else!"

"You miss the importance of this," the doctor was also losing patience. "I'll only keep you—"

"You won't keep me a minute—'cause I won't give you a minute! There's others who've got skins!" And he passed quickly out.

Stone could do no more than glare after him, and he then said something which is not usually said in sick rooms.

"Won' a li'l cullud skin do?" the old nurse looked timidly up at him.

He shook his head; smiling, but sadly.

She sighed. The windows were getting black now; night was settling over the earth; yet this man in whose hands rested the fate of Mesmie walked softly back and forth across the room, muttering:

"I must have good skin."

"I knows whar you kin git good skin," she whispered excitedly, arising and grasping him by the sleeve. "Git in dar-ar churn of yoh'n an' go dis minit to Tom Hewlet's house, den tell Miss Nancy ole Timmie say we'se countin' on her! She'll come, too! Make haste now, man!"

The noise of his little machine was growing faint, when the door opened and Brent stood on the threshold.

"Where's Stone, Aunt Timmie?"

"He's done gone," she sharply answered, for by now her heart was beating with strong resentment against entire mankind. "What you want 'im fer?"

"Nothing, so long as he isn't here," Brent turned away.

But she was following. After all, he did come to the little girl's relief—even though his intimacy with juleps had spoiled the offer. So she called after him in a kinder voice:

"I never said he warn't comin' back! What you want 'im fer, Marse Brent? Is you sick?"

"No," he gave a short laugh. "It's this way: He couldn't use me on account of my drinking—even little as it now is; and I wanted to ask how long a fellow must be entirely free from it to make his skin a good grafting proposition. If he thinks Mesmie can wait that long, I'll stop to-night and get ready. That's all. Tell him, will you, Aunt Timmie? And let me know? I'll be up stairs pretty soon."

A soft light crept into her face.

"We don' need it now, chile," she murmured. "We'se gwine git some nice, soft lady-like skin. De doctor's done gone arter her!"

"You don't mean Miss Jane!" he turned furiously upon her. "She shan't do it, I tell you!"

"Since when's you had de right to say what she kin do an' what she cyarn' do, I'd lak to know? But," she began to chuckle, "as you 'pears so upsot 'bout it, I'll tell you he ain' gwine arter Miss Jane. Now, better go home, an' not talk so loud!"

Embarrassed, he started toward the house.

"Bress yoh heart," she whispered to herself. "Dar is good in you, arter all—I don' kyeer ef you an' Marse John do toddy too much at times!" Then, quite suddenly, she asked aloud: "Who sont you back heah dis time?" His first visit she might have attributed to Jane, but Jane had now been gone half an hour. She began to think he had not heard, for he continued walking away; but, at last, his voice came through the gloom:

"The gardener."

"De gyard'ner!" she tried to reach him with her eyes. "What's de use of talkin' dat a-way! De gyard'ner don' never come nigh de house!"

There was another silence. She knew he had stopped now; she knew he was still close in front of the cottage, but her eyes were too poor to make him out in the gathering darkness.

"That's just the trouble, Aunt Timmie," she heard him say. "We don't often let the gardener come in to keep things trim and decent!"

She followed this thought with perfect understanding, for allegory was a part of her racial inheritance. She was touched, also, by the soft timbre of his voice—a quality which showed him to be deeply moved—and she leaned farther forward, peering out at him. There was something weird, and something fascinating, about these impressive words issuing from an unseen and unexpected source. The night was so still and ghostlike—the atmosphere about the cottage so charged with tragedy—the metonymy this invisible speaker employed so subtle!

"Whar's yoh gyard'ner?" she asked breathlessly.

"I don't know," he gave a short laugh.

"Well, he ain' so ve'y fur off, honey! Go an' seek 'im—you needs 'im, Gawd knows you does!—but mebbe he won' find sich a turr'ble lot of wu'k to do, arter all! Sometimes people's gyardens is cu'ious dat a-way!"

He left after this, and walked slowly beyond the house to the circle of cedars. As he was pushing aside the branches, his eyes detected something white, out near the gate, moving through the deep shadows of the trees. He stopped, puzzled. A faint radiance from the stars made the spot where he stood quite discernible and, now seeing him, this white thing, whatever it was, changed its course and approached. As it came he saw that it seemed to be stumbling, or staggering, and he thought that it was moaning. Then suddenly he recognized Jane.

In a bound he was across the intervening space and, as she stumbled again, caught her in his arms, crying hoarsely:

"For God's sake, what has happened?"

She clung to him, drooping, sobbing, and out of breath; and fiercely he held her closer, as though by the presence of his strength she might feel secure.

"Mac," she gasped, convulsively, "Mac—is dead!"

"How?" He asked it calmly; with a fearful, avenging calm; knowing that in the way Mac died would be revealed a tragedy.

She tried, but could not answer, and simply leaned against him sobbing great silent sobs which shook her body and tore his soul with anguish. The love he had felt for her was slight to the passion now demanding utterance; yet his lips set resolutely to suppress any word of endearment. He knew that she had come only to a friend, a big brother, someone to sustain her, and he knew too well how deadly the suggestion of anything more would be.

"Can't you tell me?" he asked gently.

"That fiendish man jumped out and caught my horse's bridle! Mac sprang at him, and he dropped the bridle, and I tried to ride him down, but he had a club and knocked my poor horse flat;—I jumped up, and Mac was fighting him terribly, but I knew he would kill Mac—and then—and then—I was so frightened I ran as fast as I could back here!"

"Thank God," he whispered, in a voice which must surely have told her how he, too, was suffering.

She gathered her strength and stood more firmly, while he let his arms quietly fall to his sides.

"Would you like Bob and Ann to come over?"

"You could take me home, couldn't you?" she wavered. "They thought I was going to stay here for dinner, and it's no use frightening them with such a telephone message."

Turning, they went slowly, silently, toward the house, but near the porch he hesitated, listening; then turned her about—for coming toward them across the lawn, limping, panting, with his nose to the ground but his stumpy tail belligerently up, was Mac.

She gave a low cry and knelt upon the grass, her arms out to receive him, and he dashed into them with a yelp of joy. The things she whispered then were exactly those which Brent would have given the riches of the earth to have heard her say to him; and Mac replied with all his doggy eloquence, furiously wiggling his body and making futile attempts to lick her face. Brent stood silently by, and for the first time in his life—at least the first time in his remembrance—something mysteriously hot and wet slipped down his cheek.

An hour later they drove into Flat Rock, leading her horse which was found grazing by the roadside. Back at Arden the Colonel and Dale, each with a high powered rifle, were mounting horses; and in town the sheriff was lifting a bloodhound to his buggy.

With a silent hand-clasp Jane passed into the house, but Brent waited for a word with Bob.

"The fellow must be quite crazy," he told this young planter, "so you ought to stay here with the girls. I'll meet the others, and tell you about it later."

Reaching the pike he drove hurriedly and was the first to arrive at their prearranged meeting-place. This was a hollow, where a little stream crossed—the place Tusk usually turned off after leaving Tom's house, and the scene of an earlier struggle. He got out of the buggy and carefully scanned the ground, flashing the same electric torch which had played a part here once before; smiling, despite his soberness, when he came to a patch of violently torn up sod ten feet from the spot where, evidently, Jane's horse had fallen. Here, he knew, Mac had made his gallant stand, desisting only after his instinct told him Jane had fled to safety.

There was little talking when the others came. The sheriff lifted his bloodhound to the ground, and the mild eyes of this heavy dewlapped creature looked confidently up at them, waiting to be told what human atom of the millions over the earth he must bring to justice. This was all he asked to know; so when Jess held out the handle of Tusk's discarded club, he sniffed it carefully and was satisfied. A low whine assured them that the man-hunter had now an imperishable record of the scent; that he was ready to follow it across the State, around the world—providing the pursued one used no pepper or other mean artifice, and traveled by foot on land.

The men tied their horses, for this chase must be followed warily—nor could horses go where a hunted man might venture. Jess led, holding the leash strained by the hound's impatience. Silently the others followed into the black wood, and all was quiet save for the occasional snapping of a dead branch;—this hound having been too well taught to allow himself the joy of baying, except in rare situations. He knew the chase, and he knew the value of keeping his quarry unwarned.

But in half an hour the old Colonel was breathing hard. He had not been accustomed to walking through wild places at night, and it was this increasing fatigue, this undertaking of a trial beyond his strength, which seriously handicapped the party. Had he more wisely remained at home, the others might have pressed Tusk before he reached a country offering limitless possibilities for eluding pursuit, or before he was given such ample time to employ them—for Tusk, deficient as he was, possessed a certain type of mentality capable of embarrassing any bloodhound if given half a chance.

Yet even Tusk had been slow in getting started. He had caught Jane's bridle to ask her when Brent was going to give him that hundred dollars. Then Mac had dashed at him, and Jane had ridden at him. He had knocked the horse down, then dropped his club to tear away the dog. Time after time he had torn him from his legs and slammed him violently to the ground, but each time Mac was back at him with greater fury; and at last, when the airedale, not whipped but wise, dashed off on the trail of his mistress to see that she met no other perils, Tusk sat down cursing savagely. His legs were smarting from their wounds, and one gash, deeper than the others, was bleeding freely; so he tore a strip from his shirt and rudely bound it up. It felt better now and he arose, knowing that both man and beast would soon be coming like a swift pursuing vengeance.

This country at night offered no mysteries for Tusk, who traveled it as confidently as he would have in the day. He even laughed as the thrill of the chase tingled through his powerful frame; then plunged into the wood and for an hour held a course due east.

His first halt was at the entrance of a tunnel-like formation in the rock which opened out to the bank of a rushing stream. Here, on this side, away from the noise of water, he must listen well. No sound, no bay; nothing but the hoot of an owl somewhere in the black forest reached his attentive ears. Yet an enemy would surely follow, and it must be baffled before he could lie down in peace to sleep.

So passing through the natural tunnel he waded across the stream, openly, without artifice, and followed up the opposite shore; purposely leaving a trail so simple that dogs could not miss it, and men would believe him unsuspicious of pursuit. Half a mile on, where it seemed the obvious thing for one to do who might be making all speed to the nearest county line, he recrossed. Several times he did this in the same simple way, always heading east; but now the stream turned sharply north. He knew that it would, and he had planned to leave it here, continuing straight and boldly through the forest in order to emphasize the idea that he was taking the shortest route to safety; but after another half mile he stopped—then he laughed. Up to this point a puppy could have followed him to every crossing and picked his trail up readily on the other side. So he laughed, and now began the second phase of his cunning.

He doubled back upon that last half mile, entering the water where he had come out, then laid down and began to float with its swift current; touching the bottom with his hands or sometimes swimming the deeper places. Progress was restful and rapid now, and he felt thoroughly elated. Continuing past all his former fording places, past the natural tunnel where he first came in, he went on for another mile and then began watching for a branch that might be low enough for him to reach. This was not difficult to find in a forest so thickly wooded, and soon he had climbed into a tree without once having put his foot to shore. From branch to branch, from tree to tree, he went, feeling his way warily like a 'coon, reaching, swinging, risking much but never slipping, till at last he let himself off on a cliff several hundred feet back from the swirling water. He could indeed laugh now. At no place between the point where he began doubling back upon his trail three miles away, and this very spot on the cliff where he now stood, had he so much as touched dry land. That the sheriff's hound would be hopelessly baffled was indisputable. The men, of course, might wait for daylight, and by examining each low hanging branch, from the stream's source to the point where it disappeared into the cave, discover the one by which he had climbed out. But this would require time; moreover they would have to possess a knowledge of his trick—and Tusk flattered himself that no one knew his trick. He was immeasurably pleased, and would have tarried here in an enjoyable contemplation of his triumph, but there was another link of safety to be added: a stiff, heartbreaking climb still higher to a spur of rock where he had often before "laid out." Here, too, was his stock of food, whiskey and tobacco.

When he finally dragged himself up and rolled over on its flat surface, he did not think of these refreshments. He was exhausted and very sleepy. The long contact with cold water had numbed and soothed the wounds in his legs, and, since they had stopped smarting, his sluggish sensibilities caught no message of their existence—gave him no warning that the deeper gash had been partially opened by his climbing in the trees, and that now the red stain upon his ragged trousers was slowly spreading. He knew only that he was sleepy; so he yawned, then slept.

As an ox which snags his hock upon a point of flint and placidly grazes while he bleeds to death, so might Tusk have slept into eternity, were it not for that mysterious spark of something which the most crass of men possess to mark them human. Thus it was that later in the night he awoke with a feeling of terrible fear, of the presence of some awful catastrophe; and sat up, looking about him through the dark, shivering. He did not comprehend that an alert subconscious mind might be giving the alarm, touching him upon the shoulder and guiding his hand to the bleeding wound; but, once he knew there was a bleeding wound, he acted with promptness and a fair degree of skill.

When the sky was growing light four weary men and a dejected dog passed down the bank of the disappearing stream, three hundred feet below this spur, trudging homeward. But Tusk, though weakened and breathing rapidly, was again asleep.



CHAPTER XXXIV

A GIRL'S NOBILITY

At half past eight o'clock in the morning Aunt Timmie was tidying up the room, Doctor Stone was removing his white jacket, and, on an adjoining cot to Mesmie, Nancy lay dozing from the effect of an anaesthetic. Her face held a frown, as though even in slumber the memory of the ordeal was following her.

"I'll go now," he whispered, "and be back at twelve. You know what to do."

The old woman nodded, but did not stop the palm-leaf fan being impartially waved over her charges. She sat like a brooding hen with two chicks; very alert, keeping an eye on each.

It was about this time that the hunting party reached the stables at Arden and grimly separated—the sheriff being driven to his waiting buggy by one of the Colonel's men, who would bring home the tethered horses.

Dale looked at the sun, now high above the mountains, and, without a word, left for the library. His all night tramp seemed to have brought no fatigue; but the old gentleman and Brent, turning toward Bradford's cottage, moved slowly.

Timmie saw them coming up the path and, glancing once more at her charges, went to the door. She did not at once notice that their trousers were frayed and muddy, and their faces scratched. News of Jane's adventure had not reached her. But her countenance was severe. During the night she had done a deal of thinking and her indictment spread over the entire male species—even now including Brent. In a hazy sort of way it was borne in on her that if gentlemen were unable to drink and at the same time keep their skins decent, they were becoming inexcusably degraded. In the circumstances, they could have no pretty gardens—ever! Above all, perhaps, was her intuitive knowledge that Brent had tried to harm this girl who, at the bidding of an old negress, came offering her flesh to help one in whom she felt no particular interest—though Dale, too, had immeasurably shocked her with his selfishness. The sum total of these things went into the long night's vigil, and left her at high tension. So now, when the men arrived, she was facing them, frowning as an indignant, inexpugnable black executioner.

"Good morning, Timmie," said the Colonel, starting to enter, but she blocked the doorway, announcing:

"You-alls cyarn' come in! Dar's a lady 'sleep in heah!"

"How is Mesmie?" he asked.

"She's in mighty bad shape, dat's how she is!"

The Colonel stood a great deal from Timmie and Zack, for much less than a tenth of which he would have sent another negro off his place in double quick.

"Who is the lady?" he asked, not over pleased at her humor.

"Nem'min' who de lady is! But she's a suah-footed, elegant an' lovely angel, dat's got moh human kindness in her den anyone I sees a-lookin' at me!"

"Come, come," the Colonel frowned, "don't answer me in this childish way! Who is the lady?"

"Well, take a peep—bofe of you—but mind, don' make no fuss!"

She edged to one side, all the while watching Brent as they came near for the promised peep. His face flushed quickly, but the Colonel looked more carefully and, turning, whispered:

"I can't see her! Who is it?"

As she told them how Nancy had come, tears gathered in the old gentleman's eyes and his chin quivered with strong emotion.

"See that she wants for nothing," he said gently. "When the doctor is through, bring her right over and have everything comfortable."

"I'se done planned dat out, Marse John," she spoke with her more accustomed tenderness. "She's gwine have de room 'crost from Miss Liz, an' fresh boo-kays eve'y day. We'se comin' over 'foh long, too; fer de doctor say he ain' gwine take no moh skin offen her." Then suddenly she exclaimed: "What, in de land sake, is de matter wid you-all's pants?"

But he had turned, and in deep thought started across the grass to the big house, leaving her in open-mouthed amazement.

"One doesn't see much handsomer things than that girl has showed us," he said to Brent, who was keeping somewhat in advance.

"No," he answered over his shoulder.

Awhile longer the old gentleman walked with bowed head, then asked:

"Why your abstraction, sir?"

Brent wheeled and faced him. He was crimson with shame, and blurted out two short sentences:

"I'm a pup, Colonel! I've no right to walk with you!"

"Eh—wha—what do you mean, sir?"

The old gentleman stood rooted to the spot, one foot in advance as he had just begun his last stride. He had not even raised his head, but was looking up from under frowsy brows with eyes that were grave and startled. Against his will some old whisperings of months ago insistently recurred to him.

Brent now took a few steps back and fearlessly met those accusing eyes.

"One time I tried to hurt that girl," he said squarely. "I got her to meet me at night, because she didn't know any better, and I didn't give a damn. But she showed me what a scoundrel I had intended to be then, and she's just showed me again. She told me about Dale's blind sister then, and now she's telling that all over again, too. It gets next to me, Colonel, and if anybody wants to kick me about your farm till dinner, he can begin when he's ready!"

"All right—er—Gridley," the old gentleman smiled. "In the ratio of your repentance I feel proportionately happy. You've relieved my mind of a cloud that has shut out a lot of sunshine these past months, which otherwise would have been entirely bright. So I absolve you, sir! Now let the talk die."

"Talk?" Brent flushed a deeper red. "Are they saying anything about it?"

"Emphatically no!—not the girls, at any rate. There may have been some—er—slight mention."

"Oh, I hate that," he cried, feeling his soul cringe for the injustice he had brought upon her.

"So do I, sir," the Colonel quickly declared, not understanding. "But you must let me assure you that the girls have given it little attention. They never gossip, sir!—for gossips, sir, are the most arrant of cowards! No one's character is safe from them, sir! They take a grain of fact," the old gentleman's face was becoming flushed as he thundered forth this pet denunciation, "and plant it in soil manured with the rottenest intentions, sir! And it grows into a bastard of truth, exhaling odors as vitiated as the breath of a toad! The very saints could not be revivified from such a poison, much less our poor selves, sir, who strive a lifetime constructing character for those damned polluters to blight with their graveyard whisperings! I detest it, sir! The stench of it is repulsive to honest men and gentle women! But come," he added more genially, "before we spoil our breakfasts."

Miss Liz was waiting at the table and she poured their coffee with more than her usual concern. The Colonel could invariably detect in what humor that dear lady happened to be by the way she rendered him this service. He told her of Mesmie's condition, and portions of the other news imparted by Aunt Timmie—breathing no word of the man-hunt, or what had led to it. For awhile her usually severe face was softened, and then she arose.

"You must both get on without me this morning," she said, with a faint smile. "I must go to that girl, for she needs someone besides Timmie, and Timmie needs rest." At the door she hesitated. "Have I not told you, brother John, that the middle class is our country's safeguard?—that we would be in a sorry plight without it?"

Meaning no unkindness toward Nancy, but to vindicate himself in a former argument—and, of course, having kept from her the unpleasant termination of the mountaineer's visit, he said:

"Had she not come, we might have had Dale. You know that he offered himself."

"Yes, and I am very glad; for Dale is of that great treasure house—the middle class!"

The Colonel cleared his throat. "Well, my dear, I gathered from Timmie that Brent, not once but twice, offered the same service most handsomely."

"Cut it!" Brent, flushing, whispered savagely across at him.

"One may always depend upon a gentleman," she drew herself up with dignity, "to meet any situation!"

"Then it is not a question of class, but of being a gentleman, that should decide," the Colonel chuckled.

But Miss Liz swept haughtily from the room and her untenable position, her answer trickling back to them until she reached the porch:

"There has been too much noble generosity shown upon your place during these twelve hours for you and me, John, to part with mutual recriminations!"

Straining his ears to catch the last of this, the old gentleman looked resignedly at Brent. "A wonderful institution is woman," he sighed. "By the way, where is Dale?"

Uncle Zack, whose wondering eyes had scarcely left their travel stained clothing, answered that he was in the library. Yet, as breakfast progressed, he did not come, so the Colonel and Brent, having finished, now arose to go after him.

"I want to tell you," the engineer said, as they stepped into the hall, "that I feel a lot better after our talk on the lawn this morning. I did everything I could to apologize, and she has let me stay her staunchest friend."

The old gentleman passed an arm about him. It was eloquent of confidence and extreme affection which words would have belittled.

"She is a noble girl," he murmured; then, gravely shaking his head: "but what I cannot understand is where she gets those sterling qualities. Her breeding must be most inferior!"

"Colonel, you've seen a lot more of the world than I, but it seems to me that pedigree isn't worth half as much as charity and common horse sense."

"Those qualities," he retorted, now glowering at the engineer, "are traits which every man possesses in his own estimation, and in which he regards his neighbors as singularly lacking!"

"I was never more convinced of it, sir," Brent laughed. "Now, I'm going to bed—what are you going to do?"

"I think," the poor old Colonel sighed wearily, "I'll sleep right here, leaning against these banisters."



CHAPTER XXXV

THE PRODUCT OF SUNLIGHT PATCH

As the weeks passed, a great relief spread throughout the place when it became known that Mesmie would recover. The grafts had taken hold, and it now seemed as though her days might be long and prosperous. Fair judgment placed this to the credit of the young physician, and Jane had congratulated herself more than once for having transgressed the Colonel's wishes in calling him instead of Doctor Meal. For the slow moving, sympathetic Doctor Meal would have applied linseed oil, patted the child's head and called her a good little girl. Then, carried by his pacing mare, he might have started townward for a bag of candy or a doll; while she, on the speedier wings of deadly tetanus, would in all probability have gone to her ancestors.

This, at least, was the prevailing opinion of everyone except the Colonel, who would tolerate no suggestion of it. Doctor Meal had always cured his ailments, and he knew his skill from long experience. The fact of the matter was, the Colonel possessed a strong constitution and happened to be lucky. His old friend and physician, if called professionally, had a way of beginning his examinations in this wise: "Well, John, what you reckon ails you?" The Colonel would then give a diagnosis as suggested to him by a night of discomfort. "Well, well! You must feel right bad, John! What you reckon I'd better give you?" The Colonel would then name some nostrum, also decided upon during the long night. Old Doctor Meal would open his saddle-bags and mix it, along with a toddy to make it palatable; then he would build a toddy for himself, and sit down to talk. Of course, the Colonel swore by him!

Nancy had long since been brought over to the big house, because neither the Colonel nor Aunt Timmie would consent to her going home—both through purely different motives. It meant but one more addition to the Colonel's eleemosynary institution (as Ann had acquired the habit of calling Arden) and gave Doctor Stone an additional reason for making his daily visits: thirty minutes at Mesmie's bedside, and anywhere from one to three hours walking beneath the trees with his older patient.

But in other directions matters were not so hopeful. For a fortnight Jess and his bloodhound had grimly searched the mountains. He felt the necessity of raising a posse, but the Colonel would have none of that; no others besides themselves and the trusted sheriff, he swore, must share the story, lest it be bandied from tongue to tongue and eventually distorted—too many characters, he said, were sacrificed every Saturday night by those gods who whittled upon their thrones in front of the village store to take any chances. So Jess had searched alone and in vain.

Brent, working at the survey with an ardor that might have been inspired by the example of Dale, had each evening come home by way of the partly rebuilt cabin, hoping—praying—to get a glimpse of the outlaw. Nor had the Colonel remained passive, but his activities progressed on the back of a horse. There had been one other watcher of whom neither of them knew.

This particular morning the engineer was in his room, plotting out an accumulation of field notes. By him, and bending over the large drawing board with as deep, though not as accurate, an interest, the Colonel stood. Not infrequently now did the old gentleman come up to watch this railroad grow upon paper, and talk as the other worked. They had been speculating on the whereabouts of Tusk, and Brent was supporting Jess' theory that he had fled into Virginia; but it was a most unpleasant subject to them both and the Colonel exclaimed:

"I understand Tom has accepted my price!"

"Yes. He sent his wife to Dulany. They're leaving almost at once."

The old gentleman chuckled. "You've won the neighborhood's everlasting gratitude, sir! And did he promise to brace up in the country of his adoption?"

"By proxy," Brent mumbled, at the moment carefully drawing a line. "But promises don't amount to a fiddle-de-dee. Men brace up when they want to. Have you seen Jane lately?"

"Not for some days. You know I urged her not to ride alone. Why?"

"I was just wondering if she had spoken to you about Dale. Have you noticed anything strange in him?"

"I've noticed that he is thinner," a shade of worry passed over the fine old face, "and his eyes—" he hesitated.

"That's it," Brent looked up. "His eyes have a haunted look. He's sick, Colonel."

"I should have spoken to Stone, Brent, but have been so worried over that dear girl! She seems changed, too. I don't know what is happening to us!"

"Better speak to him today, then. He's leaving for a few days' pilgrimage to distant patients."

The old gentleman went to the door and called down to Uncle Zack, sending him after the doctor whom he knew, since the little motor vehicle was in front, must be somewhere on the grounds.

In silence they waited; the Colonel meditative, Brent leaning above his drawing and making line after line which would weld the mountains with civilization. Still their man did not come, so without further comment the Colonel went slowly down stairs and out to the porch, there gazing sternly at the grouped lawn chairs where the attentive physician was sitting with Nancy. But, as he approached them, a measure of recollection must have returned to the man of science, for he looked hurriedly at his watch and began to stammer:

"Colonel, I am greatly to be excused! I was just—just giving Nancy a few—a few instructions till I come back for her!"

"For her, or to her?" the old gentleman's eyes twinkled.

"He said 'to her,'" she insisted, blushing furiously.

"I really—that is, I said 'for her,'" the doctor smiled happily, as she gave him a rather bewildering look and precipitately fled.

They watched her go into the house and then turned to each other, one with an accusing smile, the other grinning self-consciously.

"You'll find her here when you return," the old gentleman murmured. "I shall never permit her to go back to those who are neither her blood nor breeding, and my home shall be her home until she chooses to leave it; but, sir," he began to smile again now, "my consent will have to be obtained—I warn you!"

The doctor, still crimson to the roots of his hair, was endeavoring to say something rational about his practice and his prospects, when the Colonel sternly interrupted him.

"Stone, all the worldly goods you may possess or ever expect to possess, if they were greater than these mountains behind us, would not amount to a damn, sir, unless your mind is clean and your body healthy! If you can say before your God that they are no worse than those of any man whom you would have your sister wed, go then and win your bride!"

A silence followed, so prolonged that the Colonel was beginning to feel the sickening weight of dread about his heart, when the other said quietly:

"Then I may as well ask you now!"

"God bless my soul, sir," the old gentleman cried, "I consent right merrily! Nor shall I keep you another minute from her, after we speak a word of Dale!"

"Miss Jane telephoned me about him this morning."

"And what did you tell her?"

"That he's working too hard."

"Nothing more serious?"

"That's plenty serious enough, Colonel, if he sticks at it. I talked to him a little while ago, and he wanted to throw me out the window. Nobody can make him stop that grind!"

"Jane can," the old gentleman grunted.

"She's going to try, anyway, when he takes his lessons to her this afternoon. But she told me he was so impatient now preparing himself to go up in the mountains and be a Lincoln to his people, that she really doubts if she can influence him without help."

"Be a Lincoln to his people, eh?"

"Yes, emancipate them from the chains of ignorance, he calls it."

"By Godfry, sir, that isn't a bad idea! Whose help does she want?"

"Oh, I suppose your's, and Brent's, and mine, and everybody's."

For awhile the old gentleman appeared to be wrapped in thought. At last he asked:

"When do you leave to see your distant patients?"

"In the morning."

"How far to the east does that duty lead you?"

"Pretty well into the next county."

"If you should locate that place called Sunlight Patch," the Colonel looked up, "and bring him word from his sister to rest for a month, he'd do it!"

Stone slapped himself upon the leg and hopefully announced: "That's the only way to handle him! I want to go there, anyhow, and get a look at that woman!"

"So do I," the old gentleman murmured. "Some day I want to go up there, and take her back nine dollars and the mare; and tell her what her influence has stood for in this valley—better ideals and ways of living!—who can tell how far it reaches!"

"Yes, who can tell!" the doctor softly answered. "It all seems to stand as a sort of product of Sunlight Patch, which will stay with us long after Dale has gone."

"That is it," the Colonel nodded, his serious gaze upon the ground, "the product of Sunlight Patch, which will remain long after Dale and we have gone. But come," he looked up, "I am keeping you!"

"Well, if you don't mind, I'll go in for a minute and say good-bye—then come out and join you again."

"I'll be damned if I wait here till sundown," the old gentleman chuckled. "Shake hands now, sir, and let me wish you God-speed in this, and all your journeys; then you may take your own good time about saying good-bye, sir! I'm going up to Brent, anyway, and tell him!—about Dale, about Dale," he added hastily, seeing a look of consternation come into the doctor's face. But, a few minutes later when he had climbed to Brent's room, so excited was he with news and fresh plans that his very first words were: "Did you know that that fellow, Stone, is going to marry our Nancy?" He, like Aunt Timmie, put his secrets in safe places.

Being in the third floor is why he failed to see Jess come onto the porch, or Uncle Zack admit him to the library.

Dale did not at first hear the sheriff, even when the old darky had announced him and pushed a chair up to the table. But Jess, possessing less delicacy in matters of this sort, or being more in earnest, laid a hand on the mountaineer's shoulder and gave it a rough shake. This brought him back from Cicero with a glare of fury, though quickly dismissed at sight of his visitor.

"I reckoned I'd find you 'sleep," were the sheriff's first words, when Zack had gone.

"Oh, I sleep some in the evenin's. Sleep's mostly for women, anyhow."

"I wouldn't be s'prised if a leetle wa'n't fer men, now an' then," Jess grinned. "You can't lay out watchin' his cabin till daylight, as you've been doin', an' set around with these heah books all day. Fu'st thing you know you'll be drappin' off in a snooze out thar, an' missin' him!"

"Don't let that worry you," Dale clenched his fists. "I got to be with these books all day, an' I got to watch for him at night—or the books won't do me any good."

"I don't quite foller yoh reasonin'!"

"I didn't think you would," he gave Jess a superior look. "Got any news?"

"Nope; an' I've come to say I'm ready to give up! My hound says thar ain't a smell of 'im 'tween heah an' hell."

"Then your hound lies; for I tell you he's around somewhere, an' not so very far off, either!"

"Look-ee-heah," the sheriff raised half up in his chair, "I don't 'llow no man to call my hound a liar!"

"Oh, sit down, Jess! Didn't I just tell you I know he's around somewhere?"

"Then what kind of a dawg might you be, Mister Dawson?"

But Dale either did not hear, or did not want to take this up. All he said was:

"Let's keep on trying, Jess!"

"Oh, all right, if yoh're so dod-gasted suah! Go on, then, an' watch tonight, an' I'll relieve you, same as usual, jest 'foh day!"

There was nothing more to be said, so the mountaineer turned back to the table, thus curtly dismissing the sheriff whose face flushed as he got up and went out.



CHAPTER XXXVI

A TIN CYLINDER

The week dragged through to a lifeless close, and the anxiety of those nearest Dale perceptibly increased. Unquestionably he was getting thinner, his eyes were deeper and more haunted. In vain did they urge him to rest but he turned a deaf ear to all entreaty.

The doctor had been expected since noon of the previous day, and every sound on the pike brought the old gentleman to his feet, peering hopefully through the trees. Each hour, from twelve on, had made him more restive. Throughout luncheon and dinner his gaze would repeatedly wander across the terrace to a strip of lane in view from the dining-room window; and he sat up late that night, still listening. So he had slept late this Sunday morning.

But Brent, aroused by an undercurrent of some strange excitement, awakened with the birds. He went softly down the hall for his tub and dressed with more than his usual care; all the while wanting to whistle, but desisting through deference to the sleeping household.

As he stepped out into the fresh early morning one might have remarked a noticeable change in him since the night he crossed twice to Bradford's cottage. His eyes were clearer, the flesh upon his cheeks was firm and bronzed. He was a few pounds lighter, and this gave his face a clean-cut, chiselled look. His step was buoyant, and one instinctively knew that beneath the well-fitting clothes played a network of splendidly laced muscles. He threw back his head and took a deep, joyous breath of the cool pure air, then went on toward the chairs clustered in inviting comfort beneath the trees. But the grass and they were still wet, so he began strolling around the tanbark circle, following paths and brushing through dew-bathed spider webs stretched like spun glass across his way.

The picturesque old peach orchard was a wealth of blushing fruit, dropping from the over-weighted branches into a carpet of red clover. He went in here, and came out with his teeth buried in a luscious peach—leaning forward and wanting to laugh as its juice trickled over his chin. For not only were his hands occupied with other peaches, but he was pressing tightly beneath one arm a tin cylinder, three feet long and several inches in diameter. This was the thing Zack first noticed when that worthy appeared some half hour later.

"Good mawnin', Marse Brent," he bowed. "It sho'ly do look good to see you down so fresh an' early! What's dat cu'ious lookin' thing you got dar?"

"It's a lay-over-to-catch-meddlers, Uncle Zack."

"A lay over to do which?" he squinted.

"It has a present in it," Brent laughed. "Give me a match!"

He lit a cigarette, and the old fellow watched with a fond expression which gradually drew up into a tangle of wrinkles.

"Doesn' you want me to fetch you a li'l julep fer a mawnin'-mawnin'? It'll make yoh breakfas' set mighty good arter all dem peaches, an' I ain' fixed you none for—why, it must be moh'n a month!"

"No, you old sinner, I'm through with your mawnin'-mawnin's; and if you bring any around I'll take you to the grindstone!"

Uncle Zack stroked his jaw and grinned.

"Sho! Dat ain' gwine do me no hahm now, 'caze mah onlies' toof's done drapped out."

"Then I'll get Miss Liz after you!"

"Lawd, Marse Brent," the old fellow grew serious, "you knows she ain' turr'ble no moh! She's jest as meller as dem peaches, an' only las' week give me a dollar 'caze I hadn' cyarried de Cunnel but one julep dat day!"

"Is the Colonel getting up?"

"Naw, sah, he ain' budged. He say he sleepin' better'n he uster."

"Zack, do you want to ride over to Mister Bob's for me before breakfast?"

"You knows I do—'foh breakfas', an' arter breakfas'!"

"Then get your mule—I'll have something for you to take."

While Zack was hurrying to the stables, Brent walked excitedly to the garden to pick a bouquet of flowers; but, although there were thousands of blossoms from which to choose, their selection seemed a most difficult problem. More difficult, however, was a note he tried to write a few minutes later in the library; and Zack was waiting patiently before the third attempt—which happened to be the successful one—was sealed.

This he tied with the flowers to the mysterious cylinder and handed them to the grinning negro.

"Don't muss things up," he admonished. "And you know who to give them to!"

"I knows you ain' sendin' no flowers to Marse Bob or li'l Bip," the grin became broader.

Then Brent continued his walk. He felt that he could never be quiet again. The Colonel, when he came down, was too much occupied with his own thoughts to notice this restlessness, but, as a woman appeared to serve breakfast, he asked:

"Where is Zack?"

"I'm to blame," Brent answered. "I sent him over to Bob's with a little remembrance. This is Jane's birthday, you know!"

"Why, so it is!" But then he looked fixedly across at Brent, and began to raise up slowly out of his chair. "You didn't send the—the railroad?"

Brent nodded, whereupon the old gentleman threw down his napkin and the next instant they were clasped in each other's arms, dancing about the room, boisterously laughing, kicking, and greatly imperiling the furniture. As they stopped, Miss Liz was standing in the door, her hands up in an attitude of abject horror.

"My dear," the old gentleman panted, "Brent has finished the railroad and just this morning sent it over to Jane! We're celebrating!"

"Oh," she sank into her place with a sigh of relief, "I am so thankful it is no worse!"

"Worse! Why, God bless my—" but he checked himself in Miss Liz's presence.

"Did your father say you sent it to Jane?" she asked Brent, now thoroughly mystified, but sharing the happiness which could not be denied anyone in that room just then. "My dear boy, I am so glad!—and Dale will be so glad!"

"Where is Dale?" the men inquired.

Zack being away, and the maid not permitted in Bachelors' Belfry at this hour, Brent was for running up to call him, but the Colonel objected.

"He may be asleep, and that will do him more good than food which he can get at his pleasure!"

Immediately after breakfast Brent eluded the old gentleman and went out beyond the gate to watch for Zack. Up and down the cedar bordered avenue he walked, checking off the eternities which passed before the mule ambled into view.

"I wouldn' a-been so long, Marse Brent," Zack began apologizing and fumbling in his pocket for a note, "but Miss Jane jest nachelly taken a hour writin' dis!"

Now he was as impatient to be away from Zack as he had been for Zack to come. A few minutes later, down in the woodland pasture under a spreading beech, he stretched at full length in the bluegrass and reverently gazed at the little envelope. His own note had not called for an answer of great—indeed, of any—importance. (The first one had, and the second!—but the last was, he thought, a model of convention.) However, Zack had said she was a long time writing it;—at least, his eyes could lingeringly dwell over line after line, page after page, traced by her hand!

What did meet his eyes was:

"This is the happiest birthday I have ever known!"

He wondered if she, too, had found note writing difficult!

As the morning wore on he saw the family carriage, with Uncle Zack in his beaver hat, move toward the pike, and he surmised that the Colonel, Nancy and Miss Liz were going in state to pay their respects to Jane. Then he went slowly home. It was very quiet with them away. Someone back near the kitchen was turning an ice cream freezer, which produced a rather unpleasant suggestion of Sunday company, and a long and tiresome feast. He saw the upstairs maid.

"Where's Mister Dale?"

"He's done gone out, sah."

"How was he feeling?"

"I don' know, sah. I didn' see him!"

All of this was true, but Dale had gone out the previous evening, instead of today as the maid supposed when she found his bed in disorder. The mountaineer had regularly perpetrated this ruse each night before starting on his vigil, so, should he any morning be late getting home, the servant would merely suppose he had risen early. But, once snug in his hiding place near Tusk's cabin, he would fitfully yield to cat-naps—alternately dozing a few minutes and watching half an hour. That the first of these brief slumbers did not hold him in its soothing clasp throughout the night, was merely proof of his dominant purpose to remove every obstacle which would keep the school from opening in September. Yet he had become wretchedly in need of sleep; his eyes were bloodshot, and his pulse ran fast.

In another two hours Brent, through the library window, saw the carriage returning majestically along the pike. He glanced at the clock, then at the telephone, then softly closed the door and called Jane.

She took a few minutes to thank him again, graciously, conventionally; nor did she mention the present by name, because it was a good-naturedly accepted neighborhood fact that Miss Gregget listened. Then she told him the Colonel had been there, that Miss Liz had been there, that Nancy had been there; that they had stayed awhile, that they had left; she asked about Dale without giving him a chance to answer; she told him something bright Bip had said, something sagacious Mac had done—and all the while the carriage was coming nearer! He had never before known her to talk so volubly, so incessantly; but, instead of translating its reason, as a wise man might have done, he looked furtively at the circle and repeatedly tried to interrupt her. At last, in desperation, he said:

"They're coming up the porch, and I've only thirty seconds to ask you something!"

She was very quiet then.

"Will you go to the chapel with me this afternoon? Four o'clock?"

"Y—yes! I think it will be fun!"

"Fun! That's worse than 'audience' and 'pulpit'! Shall we ride or drive?"

"Let's ride."

"And Jane!"

Pause—"Yes?"

"It's my happiest birthday, too!"

She laughed. "How old are you, Brent?"

"My eyes have been open for a month;—how old does that make?"

"A very small infant!"

Miss Gregget snickered.

"Oh," Jane gasped.

"Damn," Brent growled, as both instruments clicked simultaneously.



CHAPTER XXXVII

TUSK

Early that same morning as Jess approached the place where Dale was "laying out" near Tusk's cabin, he stopped a moment, listening; then gave the clear call of a quail. After waiting several minutes he whistled again, and as still no answer came he proceeded with extreme caution.

The sun was not yet up, but in the sky were bars of red that reached high above the mountains, and by this light he saw the watcher, face down upon the rocks, asleep. Nature, his god, had commanded, and he obeyed. Jess smiled, then noiselessly sat down to wait.

Noon came. The sheriff ate part of his lunch, lit his pipe, and settled back for a longer wait. He felt an infinite relief to see this strange man sleeping, for in his gruff make-up had grown a concern for the mountaineer approaching affection. Now he swore softly to himself that, even though Potter should come, he would let him pass rather than wake Dale.

But also during the morning his interest had been held by another thing. Idly facing the east, his gaze wandering over the scarred knobs or their wooded crests, he had gradually become aware of an occasional movement on a spur far up the side of Snarly. Squinting his eyes he could distinctly make out something, but whether it were man or beast he could not be sure. Certainly it moved more as a restless bear whose cub, doubtless unable to master the climb, whined somewhere below. He turned this over in his mind.

It was three o'clock when Dale stirred. The sheriff smiled as he watched Nature gradually remove her bandage from the sleeper, who now, instantly awake, sprang up in dismay.

"Gawd! What time is it?"

Jess held out his watch.

"I must a-slept eighteen hours," the mountaineer gasped, as though such a thing were scarcely in the range of possibility.

"An' real glad I am, too, Dale! We ain't lost nothin' by it, an' it's done you a heap of good. Here's a bite to eat!"

Dale attacked it ravenously, then took a deep breath and stretched.

"I feel like a catamount! Come on, Jess—where'll we hunt?"

"I was jest thinkin'! Whilst you slept, I seen somethin' looked like a bar up on that-ar spur!"

Dale wheeled and watched the place for several minutes.

"I don't see nothin'," he said, at last.

"'Cause it ain't been over to our side yet, that's why! But it's thar, all right—or, leastwise, it was thar!"

"Jess," the mountaineer spoke quickly, "last spring I saw him there, too. Come on! Maybe—but I don't reckon it could be, if you thought it was a bear!"

"I don't neither; but thar ain't no tellin'! It's 'bout the only place we ain't been! I'll tie the dawg heah, so's if it is a b'ar he won't git cut up none!"

After a hard two-hour climb they reached a ledge seeming to run on a level with the spur, followed it a few hundred feet and, cautiously parting the branches, looked out. There was still too much foliage to permit them to see, and they crept nearer; this time coming to the base of the spur itself. But Jess, who was slightly in advance, drew back and silently cocked his rifle—an act which any mountaineer would rightfully interpret as a command for absolute silence. Together, now, they edged forward.

Barefooted, crawling aimlessly about on his hands and knees, wagging his head from side to side and mumbling, was Tusk—in truth, enough like a bear to excuse the sheriff's former uncertainty. He seemed to have no intimation of the watchers who had, in their surprise, advanced far enough to be in full view. Indeed, twice he crawled within ten feet of them, all the while wagging his head in a way that, were he able to see at all, must surely have disclosed them.

"Is he drunk?" Dale whispered, but Jess solemnly shook his head.

"Nope, he ain't drunk—leastways, that ain't the main trouble! He's plumb crazy with a fever, an' damn nigh starved to death! Look at his face an' cracked lips! I don't know as we'd orter take 'im down to town, Dale;—maybe it's ketchin'!"

"Not take him! Not take him!" Dale cried in an angry voice. "Well, I ain't afraid of nothin' ketchin'! He won't get away from me again, I tell you!"

"Who said I was afeerd of ketchin' somethin'?" the sheriff answered, with a black frown. "I was thinkin' of other folks! Didn't you never try thinkin' a leetle bit of other folks, jest to see how it 'ud feel, Dale?"

A deep growl from Tusk made them turn again. He was quite still now, and listening; while his eyes, seeing but not seeing, stared at them, and his brows puckered as though trying to call back some hazy memory.

"Good Lawd," Jess whispered, "look at his foot an' leg! It must be blood-pisen, or gang-green, or somethin' like that, Dale!—that, an' a burnin' fever, an' not any too much sense at best, poh devil! Why, he don't know whar he's at! Tusk," the tender-hearted officer stepped out and called to him, "we've come up to help you some!"

A spasm of terror crossed the unfortunate man's face; but then he gave a curious sort of laugh and began to crawl awkwardly toward the point of the spur.

"Set down thar, Tusk," the sheriff called again, this time making ready to follow. "Set down, now, till I git out to you!"

Tusk laughed. A child crawling over a nursery floor might so have laughed if playfully chased by its nurse. But this misshapen hulk of humanity did not possess even the wisdom of a child. He only laughed and crawled faster, looking back with an expression of mischievous cunning and extreme delight.

Jess saw the imminent danger of Tusk's direction. With one movement he uncocked his rifle and laid it on the ground, then sprang out upon the spur. He did not ask Dale to follow, for somehow it was borne in on him that the mountaineer, having come expressly to wreak vengeance, was making a concession now in remaining neutral.

"Wait thar!" he yelled. "Wait, you fool, afore you pitch over the side!"

The sheriff was running, as well as one could run on such an uncertain, dizzy place, for Tusk had given another cry of hysterical delight and was crawling with all his speed, looking over his shoulder at this new play-fellow who seemed to enter so readily into a game.

"For Gawd's sake," the sheriff screamed. "Stop, Tusk!—Stop!—Oh, my Lawd!"

He was alone upon the spur, his face averted. Dale came slowly out and joined him; listening, also, in the solitude of this wild place to the deep rumble of water far below them, where it rushed into the earth carrying all things to some mysterious subterranean sea. There had been no cry from Tusk as he fell, for doubtless he had thought the plunge but a continuation of the game.

Without speaking, Jess turned and picked up two old shoes which lay in grotesque attitudes on the rock. These he placed side by side, and with them a few scattered remnants of corn bread, an empty whiskey bottle and an old hat. It was a pathetic attempt to do something—to leave the disordered man's house in order; and he smiled quietly when Dale brought a cob pipe, a knife and a twist of "long green" tobacco, which he had found.

Silently, then, they made the descent and trudged homeward; Jess solemn, Dale excitedly happy. But the mountaineer was not going to Arden just yet;—first he must tell Jane that henceforth she could come without fear and help him with his lessons.

"Wall," the sheriff said, after another hour of walking, "if you're goin' to Flat Rock I'd better leave you heah, an' make my way to Arden. Our hunt's ended, right enough; an' Gawd have mercy on his poh, ign'rant soul!"

They shook hands, and once more the mountaineer hurried on.



CHAPTER XXXVIII

A LANE AT TWILIGHT

The elaborate midday dinner at Arden had been dabbled at, or bolted with a rush which did scant justice to the cuisine of that hospitable establishment; for a restiveness obsessed the household which would not be denied. The Colonel was wishing for the return of Doctor Stone—and this happened to be the wish of Nancy. Brent cared little what took place if four o'clock would hurry around. Yet each shared in a vague apprehension for the mountaineer who, Zack told them, had not returned.

"He may have walked over to Bob's," the Colonel suggested, and the simple hearted servant, seeing his old master's distress of mind, unhesitatingly declared:

"Dat's jest whar he done gwine, Marse John, sho's youse bawned!"

This had brought relief, if not conviction.

Nevertheless, the old gentleman preferred to abandon his Sunday afternoon nap in favor of watching for Stone. Always, always now since yesterday morning, he found himself listening for hoofbeats—listening for the returning man of science who would bring a message of caution from the fountain head of Sunlight Patch; and, in this humor of expectancy, wandered out to the grouped chairs to be alone.

At half after three o'clock Brent came softly from the house, mounted his horse and started at a very slow walk around the tanbark circle. During this stealthy advance he watched with affectionate care to see that nothing disturbed the old gentleman, whose chin some time before had sunk peacefully to his breast. Still on the lookout for Stone, still vigilant and faithful to the interest of his mountain friend and guest, the Sunday afternoon nap of many years' indulgence had crept into his brain to claim its own.

For the first two or three miles after he and Jane turned out of Flat Rock their spirited animals were allowed to toss their heads and go for the pure joy of going. Mac dashed on in front, using every ounce of his sinew to keep that position. They were following the same lane, the same tangled aisle of rioting vines which he had one day likened to his life—a life in which his gardener had since been conscientiously employed.

She knew how conscientiously. Had Uncle Zack not daily poured it into Aunt Timmie's ears, still would she have known by a more convincing sense. She knew just when the gardener had entered the woods and pastures of his imaginings, cutting out the poison-ivy and pruning good things for greater promise. She had watched this with secret exultation; it hovered near her pillow in the nights, and touched her lips with song at waking time.

They reached the chapel and entered without a word. But on the threshold—where upon that other Sunday he had asked if this miracle might be performed for her sake and she had answered: "for your own!"—his eyes looked seriously, deeply, down at her. She knew they were speaking for him, and while the service was in progress she wondered over and over if hers had answered.

Neither of these worshippers, who forgot to worship, was in a mood for talking as they came out and rode slowly home along the lane. Its evening peace seemed to be a continuance of the chapel's calm. The sun was low—balancing, as a red ball, on the hazy, distant hilltops. In three and a half minutes it would be down, leaving them in an afterglow of exquisite softness and touching the partially clouded western sky with a wealth of glory.

Plaintively across the fields could be heard the call of sheep, mellowed by the tinkle of their leader's bell. She could see them—little moving mushrooms on the pasture slope—and to her ears came the sound of someone letting down the stable bars. It suggested someone watching for her coming; someone letting down the bars and calling her into a place where she might be for all time safe.

"The days are getting short," he murmured, watching the last red segment slip from sight. "It won't be so very long before these old oaks are as red as that sky."

"I don't like to think of winter," she, too, spoke dreamily. "And see! It's sunset! Don't you think we should be getting home?"

"I suppose we should," he gloomily answered, though his heart was beating madly. "And in a few days I must think of hurrying home, too—of leaving this, all this," his hand waved toward the crimson west. "It will be as if I were emerging from a wonderful dream—from a crystal palace which will fall in little pieces; and I'll search and search for the rest of my life and never find it again! I shall miss my crystal palace!"

For a moment neither dared to speak. It was very still in the fragrant lane and their horses, which all this while had been walking slower, now stopped as though in obedience to some whispered voice. Leaning gently toward her, trembling before a depth of feeling which had never until this time been so stirred, he said hoarsely:

"I won't lose it! I can't lose it, Jane!"

Distantly—yet almost out of the air about them, as if it were the spirit of Kentucky speaking with ineffable gentleness through the gathering twilight—a quintette of negroes, somewhere across the valley, sang in mellow, minor harmonies:

"Weep no moh, mah lady; Oh, weep no moh, today!"

He could see that her eyes were swimming in an adorable moisture, and her face, touched by the dying day, seemed to be whispering out to him through a glorified mist.

"I can't live without it—now!" he was pleading desperately.

"Neither can I," she whispered.

Half an hour later, Mac was still sitting in the road, his head tilted inquiringly up at them: while the horses, still shoulder to shoulder, stood patiently champing their bits.



CHAPTER XXXIX

TRIUMPH

When Dale had parted with Jess the westering sun was still half an hour from setting. As he strode powerfully on, his heart bounded with the thought of reopened opportunity—much as it did after Jane left him one other sunset evening when he had been looking into this same sort of sky.

The little stream he followed soon crossed a narrow, tangled lane, and this he knew would lead out toward Flat Rock; but, as he turned into it, far down its shadowy aisle he saw Mac, tail up, smelling under a ledge of rock for chipmunks.

There was no reason why the mountaineer should have sought a hiding-place, except for the wildness in his being which pointed cautionward; or, perhaps, feeling that Jane, not unattended, would be soon in sight, he may have preferred a more auspicious moment to deliver his gladsome tidings. At any rate, without giving much thought to whys or wherefores, he gained the bank overlooking the road and nestled securely in its foliage. Slowly, then, Mac came on, neither seeing nor suspecting; and slowly after him two riders came into view, at the very instant that the red sun dropped from sight.

When they were almost below him, when he suddenly realized the indisputable truth that in Brent was an enemy to his ambitions more formidable than poor Tusk had been, a blinding rage swept through his brain which turned all things fiery as the west. Stealthily his hand felt over the ground for a stone large enough to crush this importunate engineer—this thief, who would steal his teacher and leave him stranded in a barren school! One was there, and his fingers, feverishly yet with caution, began to scratch away the loam which held it down. But then he hesitated. Had he not told her that the greatest call of all calls, whether it came from mountain peak or lowland, did not mean fight—it meant surrender? Had he not told her this himself? And so his fingers drew away from the rock. As he peered again through the bushes Brent was saying something about losing a crystal palace—Brent, who had so recently offered to take his place in jail! And then the horses stopped, shoulder to shoulder.

Was it a new glory which illumined the mountaineer's soul at this picture which followed there in the twilight? Was it something that had been reflected from the face and closed eyes of Jane, as Brent drew her into his arms? Had this glimpse of happiness, as he had never dreamed of happiness—this ineffable sweetness of first confessions—this heat of a kiss as pure as God's white crucible which would forever blend them into one being for His service;—had these drawn the scales from the mountaineer's eyes, as Saul's had been blinded at the roadside, and let him see all that had been one-sided, mean and narrow in his life?

It was dusk, and the horses, still shoulder to shoulder, had passed slowly on, when Dale left his place above the road. For a long time he watched where the shadows had closed behind them—now to be always behind them.

Thoughtfully, with steps of meditation, he crossed the fields and came within sight of the twinkling lights at Arden; then for a long while leaned his elbows on a fence and pondered over many things. When he started on there was a great understanding in his soul.

At a pasture near the house he stopped again, and sent a low, trembling call into the night. Listening, he heard the irregular galloping of aged Lucy, whinnying hopefully as she came, and finally rubbing her muzzle against him in unaffected delight. He must have surprised her then, for gently his arms went around her neck and more gently he said:

"Lucy, d'ye reckon ye kin tote me back ter Sunlight Patch?—me, 'n' a book 'r two? I got school larnin' enough ter help 'em for a good long time ter come; but thar's a new larnin', Lucy, I jest now larned—the greatest larnin' of hit all! D'ye reckon ye kin tote me back ter Sunlight Patch?—me, 'n' a book 'r two?"



Transcriber's note: Inconsistencies in dialect and hyphenation are as in the original.

THE END